Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Þorgerður E Sigurðardóttir
Length: 28:27
Original language
Consultance: Rikke Houd
Music starts
Þorgerður: Yes
Þorgerður: Why?
Kissing sounds
Þorgerður: Sigrún told me that she had bought a house by the seaside.
She wanted buy a house where she could be alone. This decision made
me curious.
Sound of a car
Sigrún: The weather had been a bit dreary, it almost rained that day but
while I'm working I notice that it keeps getting clearer and around 21:00
the sun is shining in Austurstræti and I get the idea that it might be
incredible to go now .. not wait ... go now ... not wait until I have a day off,
go now and I run up to Bergstaðarstræti and I see that our car is there and
I pack a bag and grab whatever's in the fridge, carry things out to the car
and get going. I go via Þrengslin (a route) as always and it's amazing to
drive through Þrengslin because it gets higher gradually and just when
you drive through an unbelievable view opens up, you can see the
coastline and the sea and you the sun is still there, there is still sun. And I
slide down the hill and I'm so excited, I can't wait to turn left, I open the
windows because the birds are still singing.
I arrive at the house and this time I throw everything inside and go back
outside because the night is too beautiful to spend it inside and I walk
around the garden and the whole village is asleep, there's not a soul
around. It’s silent apart from the seabirds singing.
Sigrún: I bought this house 4 years ago. Then I'd found out that I needed
to be alone, live alone or at least have a retreat. It's so difficult to live
alone when you have a family. Then you have to find a place like this, that
isn't far from Reykjavík and you can go there when you need to. I want to
watch films the whole night if I feel like it, or read. I want to do things here
that I can't easily do at home. I come here to be alone. So guests are not
especially welcome here unless I invite them to come. Unfortunately I
have a phone here so I can still be reached. It's still wonderful here,
there’s swimming pool close by and I have a membership card, I also have
a library card in case I need a book. Then there is the beach and my
garden …
Footsteps
Sigrún: There were no plants or trees here when I arrived. Only this big
fence around the garden. I have carried a lot stones and placed them in
the garden, some kind of lava. I think the moss covered lava is beautiful
and here we have some perennials that can be found in nature.
Music starts.
Voice humming with the song…”I sailed the oceans, wide and blue”
Sigrún: Many years after I've moved away from there I was in the
neighbourhood, went to a shop in Ásvallagata and it was like I'd been
hypnotized , I walked straight home, I walked up Öskustígur and into the
garden and into a flat belonging to complete strangers. And this was 8-10
years after I moved away. And I will always remember how shocked I was,
it was like I was hypnotized, it was like I had completely forgotten that I'd
moved away a long time ago. It felt like I was being pulled forward, you
know…I was in the kitchen at Sólvallagata without realizing how I got
there, it's like I expected my dad to sit there and my mum to stand by the
cooker...I don't know...but all of a sudden I was in the present and there
were complete strangers sitting there and all I could say was "excuse me,
excuse me" and then I ran out.
Music starts
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Sigrún: Then the doorbell rings. I push my plate away and my head
crashes on the table, I hit the table with my forehead and start to cry and
moan "no, no, no" My brother gets scared and says, "what's wrong, what's
wrong" "Something has happened" I said, "something has happened". My
mother goes to the door and there's man standing there and I can't see
him right away because he can't be seen from the kitchen. I can hear that
she invites him to come in and they go to the living room. And everything
comes crashing down and it feels like heaven and earth are collapsing.
The weather was unbelievably bad, very windy and raining heavily. What
happens is that the engine starts coughing and then it goes silent. The
boat is out of control after that. He does everything he can to restart the
engine but he can't. 25 children lost their fathers when that boat sank and
5 men died...drowned…all of the children were young. Women came
around, aunts, the flat was crowded with people. At last me and my
brother were taken to our the bedroom and it was like I was hit on the
head or something, I passed out, like I was dead.
Sigrún: I know that he must have been swimming for a long time, fighting
the waves for 12 hours, there are witnesses to that. It was unbearable for
me to know that when me and my family first hear the news about the
boat he's still out there swimming.
Footsteps
Sigrún: It was really my only inheritance. An old chest with books that
belonged to him. I was helping my mother to clear up a storage space and
she had found this box that belonged to my father and told me to take it
with me. That’s how I found this box. I pick up the book at the top of the
pile in the box, it was the Plague by Camus. I take it to bed and I can’t get
rid of the feeling that it was written just for me. It felt like my father had
taken matters in his own hands long after his death and that he was still
trying…maybe no to bring me up but to guide me. This was such a
treasure to find, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I found these books. It
was such a great feeling to read that book. And it was so difficult to make
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Sigrún: I found it unbelievable that such a young man, only 36 years old,
would just disappear, because his body was never found. I just didn’t get it
for many years. He might have had a severe blow to the head and he
would have lost his memory. I had read about it, that you could lose your
memory. I had even prepared myself for the fact that he might have
another family in some other country, that he had been saved by some
ship and that he didn’t remember his name or where he was from. My
father looked a bit like a foreigner, he wasn’t a typical Icelander at all so I
found it likely that sailors on some foreign ship who picked him up would
never have guessed that he was an Icelander and they would take him
away somewhere, maybe to South-America. And he would have forgotten
his name and would have a new family…and I had already forgiven them,
I’d thought that through many times, I would forgive him for having
another wife and other children if I could only get him back, if I could just
see him once more. If only he would come back. I actually dreamt the
same dream for many many years after we moved, that I walked down
Sólvallagata, went inside, down the stairs and into the flat and I could hear
dad's voice in the kitchen. I always hurried into the kitchen and saw him
sitting beside the radio, an old brown wooden radio that stood in the
window. In the first dreams I would run through the kitchen that was long
and narrow, I ran into his arms and then he disappeared. Then I got to be
very sensible in the dreams, I began stopping in the kitchen doorway,
leaning against the doorframe and he said "come to me, come to me,
aren't you going to come to me and say hello?" And then I said "no I'm
going to stand here because you disappear as soon as I touch you". That
way I could make the dream last longer and I could talk to him for quite a
while from a distance. I dreamt this for many years.
Þorgerður: Sigrún has been alone in the house by the sea (door closes)
but now she’s on her way back to the city. She packs her bags and locks
up. She puts her bag into the car (car door closes) and drives away.
family I had in some other dimension that was happening parallel to our
reality. That's the feeling I got and afterwards, I felt like I was living with
this imagined family of my father somewhere else...now…
City sounds
Þorgerður: She phones me and asks me to come and see her. She’s got
some good news. There are some friends visiting when I arrive, they are
having coffee.
Sigrún: I’ve been thinking so much about the book, I’ve been looking for
it everywhere. I’ve looked through all the bookshelves several times, there
are so many bookshelves here as you can see. There are bookshelves out
in the hall and also upstairs. I asked Bragi (owner of a second hand
bookshop in Reykjavík) for it but he didn’t have a copy. Then I went to
Kolaportið (indoor market in Reykjavík) and there’s a man there with a
large bookstall and I ask him if he has this book. He looks at me for bit and
then he tells me that he’s had this book for a long time but recently a man
asked about it, only a few days ago and “now you’re asking about it. Is
there some special reason why you’re both asking for this book now? I’ve
had a copy of this book for many years.” I told him that I was asking
because I’d lost my copy of the book, there was no other reason for me
asking. He told me that he still had a copy because he had shown it to that
man who asked for it but suddenly he was gone without buying it, so it’s
still there.
I asked him to describe the man who asked for the book, because I got
this strange feeling …. goosebumps on the back off my neck ….. I don’t
know why. “Who was it who asked about the book?” “It was quite an old
man, maybe around 80 years old who asked about the book.” “And what
was he like?” “Well, he had white hair. He was an old man, I can’t describe
him any further, I’m not good at describing other people, it was just and
old man with white hair.”
He goes to get the book, hands it to me, and I buy it. I come home and I’m
really happy with the book. I walk in, carrying the book and as I walk into
the living room…I’m trying to find a place for the new book…I see the
other one. It’s just there, in the right place on the bookshelf. It’s there,
there’s no denying the fact that it’s there. I take it from the shelf and
examine it and yes, it’s the right book. So all of a sudden I have 2 books. I
find this unbelievable, I phone Sveinn, my husband, right away and ask
him if he might have found the book without telling me and he answers
“what’s the matter with you, if I’d found it I would have told you right
away”. So we were speechless for 2 or 3 days, he took the book with him
to the bedroom, the one I bought, that is, I didn’t want him to take the
other one that was surely mine. He brought it up to the bedroom and
said: “Aren’t you going to read yours? Aren’t you going to read yours?”
and I said “No, it has to happen under very special circumstances, I’m
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going to bring it to the house (by the sea), I’m going to be alone because
I’m hoping to get this unique feeling again, this very special unique feeling
I felt before, that this book was written for me, no one else. I’m going to
see if I get flooded with this feeling again and I’m so excited. I’m going to
do this next week. So …. I’m lost for words.
Sigrún: Like I said, I’ve been looking so carefully for it and the same day
as I get the other book it’s just there on the shelf. Like it’s always been
there. This is the story about the book. I’m going to the house on the 31st
of March and I will bring it with me. I’m going to take my time, get
comfortable, I’m going to cook, I’ll light candles, have a glass of red wine.
I’m going to sit in the corner of the sofa with the pillows all around me and
look at a picture of my father, for some reason I feel like that should be
included and then I’m going to open it and read.
Music starts
Sigrún: I'm nine years old and there has been constant talk about a solar
eclipse. And it's summer, wonderful summer. There has been talk about a
solar eclipse for days and everybody's talking about it "What is this, what
happens, what is a a solar eclipse? Does the sun just get turned off? Will
there be nighttime? What happens? Will there be night? And we are all so
excited. My father is in good spirits, he sits there and hands out soot
glasses and we are all so excited. “I can't wait, I can't wait.” And we're
standing there, all of us and my father keeps saying: " Sigrún, do you have
your soot glasses? Jónas, do you have yours? He ask all the children and
yes, everyone is ready and we all stand there and stare in the direction of
the sun and yes, it is as bright as always, everything is illuminated and
beautiful and the birds sing and the flowers are in bloom, everything is like
it should be.
The End
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